The present invention generally relates to purchasing systems, and more specifically, but not exclusively, concerns a sales system adapted to dynamically price goods and/or services over a computer network.
With the recent explosion in Internet commerce, the amount of stolen or pirated content has been on the rise. Encryption systems, such as Secured Digital Music Interface (SDMI), can be circumvented by hackers so that songs contained therein are freely available. For example, point-to-point (peer-to-peer) (P2P) programs, such as Napster and Gnutella, have made it very easy for a person to copy copyrighted material without compensating the author or artist. Consumers who download the pirated content believe that it is “free”; when in actuality they are “stealing” the author's work. Current intellectual property laws are not comprehensive enough and have not quickly adapted to cover this developing technology. Since intellectual property rights vary internationally, enforcement of those rights across national boundaries can be difficult. Although suits against P2P providers, such as Napster, have been successful, the cost and time involved in achieving a successful result can be prohibitive. Moreover, systems like Gnutella do not require a central index server for maintaining a list of users. This decentralized approach makes it nearly impossible to shutdown such systems since there is no central operator to target for suit. Pursuing legal remedies against individual users who break copyright laws only antagonizes the public further and creates further animosity towards the recording, movie, software and publishing industries.
Due to their popularity, the P2P swapping services, like Napster and Gnutella, have dramatically increased network loads of institutions where such services are extremely popular, like colleges and universities. To combat the increased network loads, universities have denied students access to such services across their networks. Thus, these services are severely hampered in contacting an extremely desirable demographic of consumers, students.
Therefore, there has been a long-felt need for a system to provide digital media priced so that content suppliers can make a profit, and at the same time provide an incentive for consumers to purchase and not steal content.
According to one aspect of the disclosure, a dynamic pricing system for pricing items for sale by a seller which items are available in a limited quantity comprises a pricing server and various types of data stored in memory. The pricing server includes memory, a processor and a clock. One type of data stored in memory is indicative of the initial quantity of an item available in a limited quantity. Another type of data stored in memory is indicative of the current remaining quantity of the item available in a limited quantity. Yet another type of data stored in memory is indicative of an expiration time at which it is desired that all of the item available in a limited quantity be sold. The processor is configured to price the item available in a limited quantity so as to deplete the inventory of the item available in a limited quantity by the expiration date based in part by accessing the memory to retrieve the data indicative of the initial quantity, the current remaining quantity and the expiration time and accessing the clock.
Other forms, embodiments, objects, features, advantages, benefits, and aspects of the present invention shall become apparent from the detailed drawings and description contained herein.